Just say goodbye to those carb loaded chocolate filled Easter baskets glaring at you from every woman's magazine cover and store shelf and say hello to playing with your food! With a few skewers and clay pots you can get the whole family involved in making festive affordable Easter basket creations that are remarkably easy and impressive.

Take something ordinary and turn it into something magical. No special tools needed—just you and your inner child's imagination. Watch this video and then “hop to it!”

Feeding Babies Healthy Food

Leanne Ely, The Dinner Diva asked me if I’d like to write for you all and I felt like I was back in school and got an assignment from a favorite teacher. Her assignment: Write about feeding little ones.

 I was at a neighborhood block party and one of my neighbors was there with her nine-month-old (he’s seven now). This was a baby that was delivered at home with the help of a midwife. No anesthetic, no doctor, no problem. My neighbor was in labor one hour! She brought the baby to the party in some kind of a hammock hung from her neck and he was in a fetal position as he happily slept through the first half of the party.

When it came to feeding time (I love to watch babies eat) the mother hauled out a Tupperware container full of the most ghastly looking green gruel from her diaper bag. (I’m sure that by the time the concoction went through the baby’s digestive system, it looked exactly the same in his diaper as it looked going into his mouth.)

Going green can make dinner time delicious and Nelly Tested!

 Toss aside those bad memories of soggy green lumps on your plate and take a new look at Brussel Sprouts. These tasty treats have been around since ancient Rome and are loaded with, nutrients, flavor and crunch.

In my book, The Mouth Trap:the butt stops here! Low-Carb Edition I talked about Nelly, my inner child sometimes wanting to sabotage my efforts to try healthy new foods.

Well, I am pleased to report that this recipe is Nelly tested and will surely make a believer out of you and your inner child. Watch this video and see how this tasty treat is a snap to prepare.

Enjoy this video of me cooking Brussels Sprouts and the recipe.

Just Another Day in a Basic Week Plan

                but a Very Valuable One...Planning Day

Do you have a certain day each week that you take care of items on this list?

pay bills

answer mail

write thank you notes

make appointments

organize your office (filing paperwork etc.)

do bookwork

plan fun outings

How would you feel, if all those important elements of your life were organized on a weekly basis?

When you are organized, you are on top of everything from the boring stuff you tend to put off to the fun of not missing out on events that are on certain dates. How many times have you missed out, because you didn’t plan it?

On my Planning Day, my husband and I coordinate calendars so we know about each other’s commitments, if they affect us. I spend from two to five hours on that list above. My Planning Day has developed into a very contemplative day.

For instance, when I pay my bills, I focus on how grateful I am to have the services and objects in my life that make it such a wonderful life. When I write my weeks’ worth of thank you notes, I think about each person I’m thanking and I visualize each one being happy and content. When I file paperwork, I am grateful for the organizing tools at our disposal that make it so easy to be organized. Being organized doesn’t cramp your spontaneity; it sets the stage for you to be even more creative.

When you claim a specific day of the week to plan, and then you stick to that regularly, you’ll begin to see that you can actually set aside tasks that fit into your weekly work schedule. In other words, you can have a pile of papers to file once a week if you’ll do it. You can add to a list of people to thank, if you’ll really do it once a week. It’s only when you don’t do what you’ve piled up for the week, that’ll you get into trouble.

21 Days to establish a habit

My kind of plan!

Are you following a weekly plan that helps you run a cozy, organized home?

When my sister Peggy and I developed the infamous, get organized 3x5 card file system outlined in our book Sidetracked Home Executives: from pigpen to paradise, we created a weekly plan that included a “free day.”

On that special day, we could stay in our pajamas all day, eat over the sink and slouch around and do nothing if we wanted to. I still have that day only I call it My Day. I do what I want and I don’t do anything I don’t want to do. I pretend it’s my birthday to get into the mood.

The interesting thing I’ve discovered over the years of enjoying My Day is that I accomplish so much in the name of being selfish about doing what I want to do! It continues to amaze me that what I’ve been preaching about for 40 years is profoundly true.

Your attitude is way more important than fact,

Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. You don't have to traipse all the way to Scarborough Fair with Simon and Garfunkel to get your own fresh herbs. They're super easy to grow yourself! In this video I show you how my purple cabbage leaves are true overachievers and my basil is quite melodramatic. It can be like raising teenagers that can't talk back! While you're watching this video about my herb gardens, I'm going to be bugging those computer nerds to hurry up and invent “smell it internet” so someday you can sit back and take in the delicious aroma coming from my garden. Until then...get planting!

I was lucky enough to visit Italy for a week. One thing I noticed was every little restaurant had an herb garden right outside. We stayed at a bed and breakfast. They  had a huge garden and when they needed something they just stepped outside and picked it. Oh, my goodness. "Magnifico" flavors just burst out. Take 25 seconds to watch this video my husband shot.

Now if they do that, why don't we?  I do and I want to show you how easy it is to grow your own herbs.

Don’t you just love the idea behind the rosary? My granny was Catholic and she taught me the rosary prayers and I loved hearing her recite them as she felt each bead. When she handled her sacred strand she did it with such humility and she treated it like it was a gift from God.

I’m not Catholic, but I’ve always loved the idea of using a tangible item to remind us to be thankful, to be joyful and to love and praise God for our blessings.

Who thought "this little piggy" could bring you thankfulness?

That’s how I came up with the idea to use my feet like a rosary! Why not? So combining the This Little Piggy Went to Market poem we perpetrated on our kids and really makes no sense when you think about it, I decided to start a new morning routine using my toes while I’m still snuggled under the covers.

Here’s what I came up with, and I’ll tell you what happened after I did my rosary toes.

Starting with my big toe of my right foot, I held each toe the same way Granny held her rosary beads, and said the following:

After I did the toes on my right foot, I did the same thing with my left ones. When I finished with them, the thought came, ‘Why stop there?’ So I took a hold of both my feet (I was still under the covers) and I thanked them for all the places they’ve taken me and where they’ll take me today. Then I moved my hands to my ankles and thanked God for the miracle of swivel. It made me be happy.

Getting rid of clutter leads to finding peace within.

Years ago I wrote about being mindful of the interrupting thoughts that come up when you’re doing boring housecleaning jobs like folding laundry or vacuuming and dusting. Using “make the bed” as an example of a boring job, I set my stopwatch and began making it, ready to catch that first mental interruption.  Six seconds in, the thought came, ‘there’s pie in the refrigerator.’

In the course of the four-minute job, my mind came up with 17 suggestions of other things to do! Here’s a similar result from Debra Biddle Linn, one of my readers:

Pam, I did the experiment of starting a boring job and seeing how quickly my mind was interrupted by wanting to do something else. I was folding laundry, the whites. I suddenly wanted to go online and find some T-shirts and order them for my husband to replace some of the old holy ones he has. I made myself stop those thoughts and keep going. Then I thought of a trip some friends went on recently, and wanted to go look online and find information about a tour for ourselves. (Stopped that one too). I think it will really help to start becoming aware of how my mind acts when doing routine housework.

We're going to Italy! We're going to Hong Kong! No ticket needed, or standing in long security lines with your shoes off.

We're going to take two chickens to two different countries for a wonderful taste adventure. Did you know the more you marinate something the juicier it gets? You'll love the rewards of this convenient technique that I'll show you in this video.

You don't need Rosetta Stone to learn the language of these delicious meals that are packed with flavor and fun. And the best part? No prep work and no washing bowls. Just call me the zip lock bag lady and watch how easy we'll set up meals for the freezer or to enjoy right away.

Happy taste travels!

It’s Time to Do it Again!

When I set out each morning to write my blog for the day, my main goal is to be lighthearted and joyful and to fill my screen with words that uplift and hopefully bring positive joy and inspiration to those of you who have graciously given me your email. I can’t do that today! I’m sorry in advance. I guess once in a while a guy just has to let negative thoughts eke out.

First off, I feel just like a cow in a herd of Holsteins who’s been thoughtlessly following the herd. At least in my scenario, I’m an American cow with rights guaranteed to me by the Constitution. I’d almost rather be cow, because if I were, I wouldn’t have to pay any attention to the issue I’m going to write about… Daylight Savings Time (DST).

I should really love DST because if it weren’t for it, my sister and I would not have written Sidetracked Home Executives: from pigpen to paradise. We were stuck in a motel in eastern Washington, because we missed our flight due to the time change. Flights went our every three days, so we were held hostage in a very creative way. Knowing us, we would never have been focused enough to start writing that book. It would have been an eternal down-the-road project, but in that three days, we wrote three chapters and as they say, “the rest is history.”  

Key # 3 Plan of Action

Now that you’ve got the first two keys to being organized (if you didn't get a chance to read them just click on them here  Part ONE,  Part TWO ),  making a decision to do it and becoming committed to that decision for the right reason(s), the third key is a plan of action. 

The simple plan is in 3-Ds:

Declutter, Delegate and Do it!

Declutter

Just like Flylady says, “You can’t organize clutter,” the sooner you get everything out of your house that doesn’t make you feel good, the better. On the subject of what makes you happy, here’s a good exercise to try.

Pick a room, any room and focus on one part of that room like a shelf or table; something that’s holding stuff. Pretend the room is on fire and in your mind, make a note of what you’d take with you (pretend you only have about 10 seconds because the flames are leaping at you and threatening to swallow you up).

As I wrote this I looked at a shelf in my office and discovered about five things on it that would   not   be worth saving. I'll get rid of them.

Putting your stuff through the fire test will help you sweep your home clean of the stuff that doesn’t make you happy. 

 Delegate